Sunday, November 11, 2018

I wait by the edge of the camp beside the
remains of the fire for the scout’s return. At the edge of the desert, his
silhouette appears against the rising sun. The sand between us glows red with
the sunrise, and it looks like everything bleeds. He brings me the last
information I’ll need for my hunt today. He’ll be the one to confirm if the
sandworm is close enough I can safely reach it before it fully wakes for the
day.

I stand and shake stiffness
from my legs. Lingering chill
from the night prickles my neck and shoulders, so I draw my new wool cloak
around me. My fingers skim the raised threads of embroidery, symbols of
strength, health, and victory. A few of the threads are crooked. My younger
brother isn't precise.

Matis gave me the cloak last night with a solemn
bow, no trace of his usual smirk to be found. Any other time, I would've teased
him about the flaws in his work. But I accepted it as formally as he gave it.
Today is the most important day in my life. It’s the day every moment of my
life has been leading up to.

Because today, I become a huntress.

Darius stops short and swings down from his
steed. Flecks of meat stick in its sharp teeth, as its lips peels back at the
sight of me. It blasts me with breath like rot. Its thin tail flicks back and
forth, the hard knob at the end swinging.

One of the huntresses from years ago, Lia the
wise, who studied halfway around the world in Heian City before joining our
team, bred them for us. They're a combination of horses and gryfith monsters.
They're stronger and sturdier than horses with thicker legs and bones, more
vicious than horses with their sharp teeth, and don't spook like horses are so
prone to.

“You’re clear to go,” he says. “The sandworm is
currently only about twenty minutes from here.”

I acknowledge with a nod. “Thanks.”

“Wait. A quick moment.” He flashes me half a
smile and then ducks his head. His pale cheeks shine pink, and his light curls
glow. “I—made you a small token for strength. Sorry it took me so long to
finish."

Usually only loved ones offers up tokens before
a first hunt, and now I find my own face warming. "Oh." He's new to
the team, originally from far north, one of the rare travelers who begs to
join. Maybe he doesn't understand the significance of the tokens.

Or maybe he does. That thought makes my throat a
little tight. I hope he’s not looking for something from me. He’s pretty,
no doubt, with his fine-boned cheeks, dusted with light stubble. But I’m not
sure I like him like that, and I don’t want to have to think too hard about it
now. I have bigger concerns.

"Do you—accept it?" He holds out a
wooden carving, hanging on a piece of string like a very crude piece of
jewelry. The intertwining circles mean strength, but not a lone person's
strength. Strength in unity, in family, in friends. The huntresses and scouts
and trainees are a team. We're not all related by blood, but we are family. The
carving is a little rough around the edges, but I suppose he's new.

"Of course," I say because it’d be
rude not to, and even if I’m not sure how much I like him, he’s still a great
scout.

I reach for it, and his hand closes over mine as
he presses it into my palm. He leans a little closer, the grey mist of his
breath swirling.

"I really hope you succeed," he says.

I yank my hand away. "Of course I will.
Training has been my entire life. I’ve given everything I have
for this." Half of the trainees who attempt this test die trying to pass
it, but I won’t end up like them. My mother was a huntress, and her mother
before her. I was made to follow in their footsteps.

I've never even considered I might not succeed,
because how can I consider that all of me isn’t enough to make me the one thing
I’ve always wanted?

“Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to insult your
abilities.”

I step back. Every word he says is more and more
awkward, and it sounds like he doesn’t believe in me. “It’s fine. Once I
return, you won’t doubt me again.”

“I don’t doubt you—I just—” he starts, and I put
up a hand.

“I need to go.” I turn my back because I can’t
get caught up in this. “But don’t worry. You’ll see when I return.”

When I become a huntress, everything I’ve
sacrificed will be worth it. My crooked nose from when my rival Tavas broke it
and called me weak, my girlfriend breaking up with me because she was afraid I
wouldn’t come back from a hunt, the most accomplished huntress on the team
rolling her eyes when I announced I would take the test this year and asking if
I was sure I didn’t want to wait one more year until I’m
eighteen – I’ll show them all that they should never have doubted me.

I weave through the team’s silent tents until I
find my family’s and duck inside. It's warm, smelling of sweat and life. My
brother snores in a pile of furs. His light brown bare feet poke out. He’s shot
up in height this year, and even if I’ll always be three years older, I’m not
going to be the bigger sister for much longer.

Mother is awake, sharpening a knife, and she
gives me a brief nod. Behind her, nearly double her size, is the scale of a sea
serpent. It’s the strongest monster she’s slain, so it travels with us. Anyone
who enters our tent can know her strength.

My father doesn't live with us—he lives in the
city of Aresten. I've met him only a few times. He didn't want to join the team
as a spouse, have to travel the world with us and sleep on the ground most
nights, have to stay in the camp during the day and pack and unpack supplies,
cook food, care for the youngest children, like all of the spouses here do.
Mother keeps hoping Aresten will hire the huntresses again, so we can visit him
once more, but they haven't requested us in years. And huntresses follow the
money.

I head for our weapons collection at Mother’s
side. Although it’s not officially part of the test, selecting my weapons
is a critical step for success. I can pick anything I want—but if I pick wrong,
I’ll have lost my fight against the sandworm before it’s even begun.

Sandworms are Beast Class monsters, large and
heavily armored, with poison on their scales. The only way to kill one is to
hit a vulnerable area through the back of its mouth. My gaze skims over the
line of close combat weapons, the spears, the curved arms, the swords, all
different metals for different monsters. If I end up close enough to the
sandworm to use one of these, I’ll probably be dead already. For a sandworm, I
need something to fire from a distance.

6:23 - Mr. Verhoeven arrives home from work.
Yells at neighbor’s Chihuahua for pooping on his lawn. Face is alarmingly red.

6:45 - Mrs. Verhoeven is dropped off by a red
sports car. She is dressed, head-to-toe, in yoga wear but looks neither sweaty
nor Zen.

7:00 - Delivery driver arrives. Indian food.

9:00 - They retire to their separate bedrooms.
Possibly due to the Indian food.

9:15 -They are fast asleep.

I sit in the old oak tree in front of the
Verhoeven’s house and wait my standard two hours and fifteen minutes before I
even think of making a move. Two hours, to make sure the Verhoeven’s are
asleep. Fifteen minutes, because I’m extra cautious. I take this thieving
business very seriously.

When it’s time, I creep across the grass to the
far corner of the house. There is a drain pipe that I can use to get up to the
second floor. Mrs. Verhoeven keeps her jewels in the guestroom, laying in a box
on an armoire. No safe. No locks. They’re practically begging to be stolen.

It takes a few deep breaths before I can access
my powers. I hold the air in my lungs and imagine myself, as light as a
feather. The magic starts in my toes, then ripples up my body. It feels like
that tingling sensation you get after you sneeze.

Now that I’m practically floating, scooting
up that drain pipe is a synch.

I scout out the narrow ledge that runs all the
way from the drainpipe to the guestroom window. It’s going to take excellent
balance and guts to make it across. Luckily, I have both, not to mention, a
little magic. Inch-by-inch I move along the ledge, until I reach the window. I
take another deep breath. This time, when I exhale, I think about making the
air in my lungs as cold as ice. The window freezes.

A quick trick with my dagger and I’ve etched a
hole, just big enough for my skinny butt to shimmy through. One tug, and the
glass is free, but it’s way heavier than I expected. I try to set it down on
the ledge beside me, but I can’t move a single inch. I’m stuck, really stuck.

Looking down, my problem is obvious. I’ve snagged
zipper on the pocket of my jeans on one of the window hinges. Betta
Vulgaris, thief extraordinaire gets brought down by a zipper.

I figure I have two options: drop the window to
the ground below and pray that no one wakes from the crash or tug my leg free
and risk ruining my jeans. Now before you go ahead and judge me, these are really nice
jeans, black, skinny, distressed just the perfect amount. Plus, it took three
months and commission from four other jobs to save up to buy them.

Obviously, I throw the window. Now, my hands are
free to unhook that darn zipper. The good news is, the Verhoevens don’t make a
peep. The bad news is, their next-door neighbor, Mrs. Weston (newly
divorced, lots of time on her hands) starts shouting at the
street below, “who made that noise? Daryl is that you?” for the next eight
minutes rendering me unable to move without being seen. That’s what gets me:
eight freaking minutes.

Eight minutes is all it takes for the other
thief to get in and out with the necklace. I can do it in six but eight as
still pretty impressive. It’s been happening lately more than I care to admit,
this mystery thief, showing up and stealing my jobs, making off with my hard
earned loot. The only silver lining in this whole story and the only thing that
could possibly save me from getting yelled at by my Uncle Larry when I get home
tonight, is that I saw my mystery thief’s face this time and now I can find
him.

He did a very stupid thing. If they wrote a
manual on how to be a successful thief, the very first bullet point would read,
“never ever under any circumstances remove your mask.” It’s a rookie mistake,
but really what can you expect from someone who takes eight full minutes to get
in and out? So, I saw him, clear as day. Now all I have to do is find him, then
it's payback for all of the other jobs he messed up for me: the Eastons, The
Van Burens and now the Verhoevens.

There is no point in hanging around the
Verhoeven’s any longer. The jewels are gone and I’m not a fan of Indian
leftovers. It’s dark and the street is quiet now. I figure it’s safe to use my
powers again. No one will see me and my poor jeans have suffered enough
tonight. I step from the ledge and float slowly to the ground, landing lightly
on my feet. Unfortunately, I also land in a pile of Chihuahua poop. I now
understand Mr. Verhoeven’s rage.

I figure the odds of Uncle Larry yelling at me
all night are pretty good, even with the new information I have on our competition,
so I decide to make a little pit-stop before I head home. Something to keep me
distracted while Uncle L tells me what a worthless, good-for-nothing thief I am
and if I keep screwing up like this, he’ll send me back to Aaronvale to be a
beet farmer like my cousin Dole.

The distraction’s name is Andrew P. Jordan. The
P stands for Positively Perfect, either that or Paul. He also goes to Fairfield
Heights Middle School. We’re completely, undeniably, totally in love, he just
hasn’t realized it yet. His house isn’t far, he also lives in the good
neighborhood, like the Eastons and the Verhoevens and every other house Uncle
Larry plots to hit. The Jordan’s have a large maple in front of their house.
There’s a branch with an excellent view and a little dip that fits my butt
perfectly. I love to sit on that branch and watch him. His face is perfect. I
think he likes admiring it as much as I do but I am cool with that. If I were
that good-looking, I’d spend hours gazing in the mirror too.

I really want to see him so I have to scoot. His
light turns off at twelve sharp and after that, the show is over, at least the
show I can see from my spot in the maple tree.

I am about to climb the tree when I spot him
walking down the sidewalk, the thief who undercut my job. There is no doubt in
my mind it’s him. Same jet black hair that waves to just below his ears, same
papery pale skin and green eyes. Plus the dingbat didn’t have the brains to
ditch his mask, he carries it in his hand as if it were his paper-bag lunch. Amateur.
Rookie. Idiot.

I bid a silent farewell to Andrew P Jordan and
his perfect cheekbones before I follow the thief down the street. He cuts
through memorial park, turns down the main street and follows it all the way to
the end before ducking down a small side street with a sign that says
“Buttercup Lane”.

Steel gears grind overhead along thin aluminum
girders. The weighted anodized-pistol rests cradled between my palms. As I wait
for the targets to line up, two questions rotate on heavy cycle: Why did my
brother have to die? And, will Ms. Reddington remember I prefer chocolate over
spice cake this year?

Ten computerized birds drop down from the
ceiling. The sensors on their tails flash red, blue, and green. Chromatic
lights reflect off of the bullet-proof glass to my left and the gray cinder
block wall to my right. It doesn’t matter how quick the fake birds move
or in which direction, blue is always first. I adjust my stance and squeeze the
trigger. One by one, the stiff, automated fowl return to the rafters. According
to my father, the electronic target system is the latest in gaming technology.
I wouldn’t know. My siblings and I aren’t allowed to leave the compound.

The panel embedded into the wall beeps before
Mother’s voice crackles through the intercom speaker. “Kade, come upstairs.
Your father and I wish to speak with you.”

My gaze flicks to the red START button.
Two-tenths of a second and I’ll have beaten the high score. Perhaps I can
squeeze one more–

“Now.”

I return the pistol to the charging dock. Game
over.

After tucking in my shirt and fastening the
buttons on my suit jacket, I sprint across the expansive atrium to the
staircase leading to the main floor of the house. Spotless, translucent gray
glass surrounds me from all sides as I skid past the other training rooms. The
soles of my dress shoes squeal along the glossy anti-static tiles. Like the
sophisticated-gaming console, the three-story, fully-staffed house in the heart
of the Appalachian Mountains is supposedly hi-tech. Again, I
wouldn’t know. My brother’s unexpected death changed a lot of rules.

At the top of the stairs, the aroma of
overly-peppered roast beef collides with the astringent, chlorinated-air from
basement below. However, it isn’t the clash of smells that almost knocks me off
my feet. It’s the intensity of Mother’s intonation and Father’s sternness.
After I steady myself, I lean closer to the door and listen.

“You promised this time would be different,”
Mother exclaims.

Father sighs. “He has been here two years
longer than–”

“Don’t say his name.”

“Dang it, Grace. You knew this day was
coming.”

“Of course, I knew, August. I’ve always
known.” Mother’s tone softens. “But I want Kade to join us when he is ready.
Not when they say he is ready.”

I steal a peek around the corner before taking
the last final step onto the main floor. Under the three-tier chandelier, in
the foyer, both of my parents face off. Mother, dressed in her usual travel
attire of black slacks and sweater, stands with her hands on her hips, her
golden hair tied in a loose bun on the back of her head. A dazzling display of
rainbows reflects off the crystals above them, onto the white walls and marble
floor. Father rolls his shirt sleeves to his elbows, his work pants wrinkled.
He watches her as she moves to the other side of the round, mahogany-red table.
When she closes the gap between them, he shifts his favorite brown journal and
electronic pad behind his back.

“Be their father for once,” she snaps.

Father’s face reddens. “I am not doing this
now.”

He smacks his hand down on the table. Skinny
orange petals rain down from the bouquet of chrysanthemums onto the polished
surface. Mother sweeps the petals in her hand and deposits them in a small
crystal bowl. Like me, the table and flowers don’t seem to belong in this icy
world of crystal and snow-white furniture.

I step into the foyer. The basement
door closes with a soft click. “Sorry to make you wait but I had to
go back down and retrieve my jacket.” Honesty, I despise liars but sometimes
telling my parents the truth can be dangerous.

Mother reaches out to touch me, then stops.
She drops her hand back to her side. “You’ve wrinkled your dinner suit.”

I run my hands over the thick black wool of my
dinner jacket. Static cracks under my fingertips. Above our heads, the bulbs
flicker. “I wanted to get a few more rounds before dinner.”

Father places his free hand on Mother’s
shoulder. The twins say I look like him but I don’t see it. We have the same
brown hair and eyes, but while his complexion is dull and pallid from sitting
under fluorescents all day, I have a ‘kissed by the skin glow’from
running outdoors every morning. “How many hours have you clocked in this week?”
he asks.

“Sixteen.” The same as the age I turned today.

“That’s outstanding,” he says with a smile.
However, his tone doesn’t match the expression. “Your mother and I can’t stay
for dinner. We have to head back to the lab.”

“It’s important,” Mother interjects, “or we
wouldn’t leave.”

What about my birthday?

On the other side of the foyer, Father’s
office door opens. Sofiya Snyderman, my parents’ colleague at AIB– the Advanced
Institute of Biotechnology– and family creeper steps out. The click of her high
heels sends a chill up my back. I glance up at the top of the staircase. Thankfully,
no one is there.

“Sofiya,” Father chokes out. A patch of black
lace peeks from under the doctor’s lab coat as she treads towards us. “I
thought you were in D.C.”

“Not tonight,” she purrs. “I came to
oversee…Kade, my little soldat.” Soldier. Her German, Russian,
and possibly Ukrainian accents blend together in a sticky
dialect-pudding. The psychiatrist adjusts her short, black wig. I take a
tentative step back. I have known Doctor Sofiya Snyderman my entire life, and
she still sends shivers up my spine.

Father clears his throat. “We were heading to
the lab. There is an issue which needs to be rectified immediately.”

Sofiya purses her thin lips, then shifts her
concern to the third person in the room. “Grace,” she murmurs, “Where is
Bishop?”

Mother crosses her arms. “How would I know?”

Movement at the top of the main staircase
catches my interest. I shake my head in warning for my two younger siblings to
stay upstairs. Behind Snyderman’s red cat glasses, her eyelids narrow.
Even though I know I am going to regret this, I grumble, “So I’m dressed in a
suit for nothing.”

Mother whirls on me. “Kade Maddox, what in the
world has gotten into you?”

“Rule number one,” I say to the tiny white
scuff on the tip of my left dress shoe, “obey authority. Rule two, never ask
questions. Rule three…”

“We should go.” Mother’s eye’s flick from
Father to the chandelier. Though no one is near the light switch, the
brightness has doubled. “Xavier is waiting for us. Kade, Ms. Reddington made
your favorite dinner. Cake is in the sitting room.”

“This is what I have been talking about,
Grace. You coddle them too much.”

I didn’t have “visitors”. Mom could only make
the trip out the first week of every month, and my sister never bothered. Not
even once.

I couldn’t blame her.

There were only two kinds of people who showed
up on weekdays: the journalists, hungry for an exposé, or the “fans,” hormonal
teens who only knew their sweet suburbs and deep-web gore porn, hoping to come
face to face with the felon they romanticized.

I stopped meeting with them all ages ago.

Their fascination with me—with us—was more
disturbing than anything we did. I remembered Jay saying once, America loved
its violence almost as much as its apple pie. I’m not sure I quite understood
at the time, how much love two gangly, teenage boys from Washington could get
with a couple of 9mms.

I’d want to see this one, the C.O. said, and I
didn’t understand until my cuffs were off and I was ushered into the visitation
room. A chill passed my skin, like I’d seen a ghost, because that’s what it was
like, seeing her again after the lifetime that was the last eighteen months.

“You look well.”

I stifled the sarcasm prison had groomed into
me. Nobody looked well in here, but she was a polite girl, nearly grown into a
polite woman.

“Emma?”

Her name was foreign on my tongue. Like I
hadn't said it in decades. She hardly even looked like the same person. Her
hair reached only her shoulders, darker and cooler than the warm caramel I
remembered. Her face, more narrow and angular without the baby fat in her
cheeks. I almost didn't recognize her, and maybe that was the point.

She finally looked at me, her forest green
eyes a confirmation, along with the desperation and grief hiding in them.

Right where I'd left it.

When I stared too long, she turned her gaze
back down to the table between us. “I’m sorry I didn't tell you I was coming. I
knew you wouldn't agree.”

I didn’t bother arguing. She was right; I
wouldn’t have.

But now, I was curious. “Why are you here?”

She hesitated, painted lips parting slightly
with an attempted answer. She chose against it, pressing her mouth into a
straight line and retrieved the purse at her feet instead. From inside, she
collected a manila envelope, placing it on the table between us.

My fingers knew the smooth card of these
envelopes too well. Signed police reports, witness statements, guilty pleads:
justice wrapped neatly in a crisp buff jacket. The facts. The truth everyone
needed. The feeling of opening a folder and seeing my past, my actions, my
fate, written out clean and concise in Times New Roman had become so familiar
that I was surprised with what I found instead.

Photographs. Glossy eight by tens stacked in a
neat pile, freshly printed and still smelling of wet ink.

“They’re from school,” she said, but I didn’t
need her explanation. I recognized the first photo immediately: A before-Emma,
red-cheeked from the borrowed rum, gold shining in her eyes from the sparklers.
The next picture, a before-me, hiding behind an orange cast on my wrist, a
heart she’d penned decorating the plaster near my hand.

A different truth. A truth nobody was
interested in hearing.

“These are great,” I lied, continuing through
the pile of familiar faces, skipping quickly over one of Jay, fingers aimed at
the camera like a gun and a grin teasing the side of his mouth. They were great,
but they left my mouth dry. These snapshots of people I’d tried desperately to
forget. People now six feet under.

“A production company contacted me, they want
to buy them for a documentary they’re making.” She filled the air again as I
neared the end of the pile. A photo from prom, where I was swimming in a
too-big tux and she snuck a kiss onto my cheek. “They… They offered a lot of
money.”

I closed the envelope before looking at the
last photograph. I could guess which one it was. I remembered the snap of her
camera shutters, vivid as a gunshot.

“You should sell them.” I hated that I knew
how much a photograph of me was worth. She could afford that fine arts
university she’d wanted to attend. If she even ended up going. I considered
asking but decided against it. It wasn't my place to know anymore.

She nodded, considering my response, but as
she took the folder back, she offered an alternative. “Actually… I wanted to
use them.” Pausing, she fended off something that glossed her eyes. It lingered
when she continued, her voice wavering. “I wanted to write a book. About
school. About you, and me, and…”

I sat back in my chair, fighting another chill
that passed me. “Oh.”

“It’s why I came. I want to talk about what
happened. And before too. I thought… Maybe it could give us some closure.” She
let her hands wring in her lap with the admission, only looking at me again
when I took too long responding. On a whisper, she begged, so quiet I would’ve
thought I wasn’t supposed to hear if she hadn’t said my name. “Please, Sam. I
need to know why...”

A thick mass swelled in my throat. I hadn’t
talked to anyone about it. Not the cops. Not my lawyer. Not a soul. For
eighteen months. And now she was asking me to speak. No. She was asking me for
closure.

I wanted to tell her she’d never have closure.
I wanted tell her that we’d robbed her of such peace, when she went to school
the day she wasn't supposed to. I wanted to tell her I was sorry. That the
thing inside her still keeping her awake at night, tossing and turning, it
would never sleep again. I knew, because I never slept either.

I couldn’t bear disappointing her all over
again, though.

“Where should I start?”

----

BEFORE

----

CHAPTER 1

I’d like to say that I woke to the pings of
incoming messages on my phone, but the truth was, I hadn’t slept a wink. I’d
been too wrapped up in my spiraling anxiety to spend the night on anything
other than my insomnia. The first day back to school tended to do that to me,
and senior year was clearly no exception.

I fished around blindly for my phone when a
fourth unanswered message arrived, finding the cord and following it under my
pillow. The bright white of the screen burned my tired eyes when I unlocked it.
I buried my face into the musty mattress again, squinting with one eye to read.

[you up yet?]

[Saaaaaaaammmmm]

[rise and shine]

[?????]

I fought a groan, tapping a response with only
my thumb.

[skip?]

An ellipsis pulsed across the screen.

[dont pussy out on me]

[be there in 10]

I allowed myself a final sigh before giving
into Jay’s guilting, fending off the instinct to curl up and fester away in my
sheets. It wouldn’t even take long. With summer lingering well past its
Washington due date, it still felt like early August despite creeping into
September.

Rot season, my mother called it.

I smelled like I’d already started decaying.
Rummaging through the clothes on my floor, I found my jeans and a tee-shirt
that didn’t smell of death, then swayed like a zombie down the hall to the
bathroom.

The first time Beatrice communicated with an
insect was the day Mom finally agreed to let her have a beekeeping lesson. It
was the perfect day for it—a white-hot July afternoon. Beatrice wore a
long-sleeved long-pants zip-up suit, thick gloves, some serious boots, and a
wide-brimmed hat with a veil that hung down to her chest. Kid-sized, of
course.

Mr. Andelin, her eighty-one-year-old neighbor,
wore the same protective gear. He was about to open the lid of the white box on
the top.

Not a box, Beatrice reminded herself, a super.
That was the correct name for it. When it came to science, correct vocabulary
was important.

A low, constant hum came from the hive.
Already there were quite a few bees zipping around. When one flew by, a soft
buzz would get louder and then fade away, like a tiny jet zooming past. One
landed in front of her face on the other side of the mesh that hung down from
her hat. She had to almost cross her eyes to look at it. “Hey there, little
guy.”

Mr. Andelin looked up, bees circling his head
like electrons around a nucleus. “Girl, you mean.”

That’s right, worker bees were girls. In the
insect world, females were fiercer than males. They were the workers, the
queens, the warriors, the hunters. They were the ones with stingers. While
Beatrice liked the idea of fierce females, she didn’t want to get stung by
one.

“Is the buzzing getting louder?” she asked.
“Or is that my imagination?”

“The veils are making the bees uneasy,” he
said. “They’ve never seen me wear one before. We’ll have to move slow and quiet
to keep them calm.”

Yes, please. Beatrice definitely wanted them
to stay calm. But could insects really notice things like that? In the videos
she’d watched, beekeepers always wore veils and used smoke to calm the bees.
All the times Beatrice had seen Mr. Andelin working at his hive, he didn’t use
either.

The only reason he wore the suit and hat today
was because Mom had insisted. It had taken a lot of convincing to get Mom to
agree to this, and full protective gear for both of them was one of her
conditions.

“Why don’t you like wearing a veil?” Beatrice
asked.

Mr. Andelin gave a tiny shrug and answered
quietly. “The bees and I have an understanding. I make sure they have what they
need, and they share their honey. It’s all very friendly.”

Hmm. That sounded very non-scientific. It was
true that bees were intelligent. Scientists had even trained them to search out
land mines in military zones. But they couldn’t have friendly feelings toward
people, could they? “What do you mean, an understanding?”

“I’ve been doing this a long time. I trust
them, and they trust me—that’s what friends do. How would you feel if every
time I came to visit you, I wore a bullet-proof vest and a helmet?”

“I don’t think that’s the same thing.” Trust
sounded fine, but it didn’t seem like the best idea with bees.

As Mr. Andelin pried open the hive’s lid,
Beatrice noticed something she hadn’t expected: She was nervous.

Even after the dozens of videos she’d watched.
Even after the stacks of library books she’d read. Even after the four and a
half essays she’d written on the benefits of beekeeping for a ten-year-old,
which was mainly to convince Mom. Even after all that, Beatrice still had a
twisty-gut anxious feeling now that she was actually here.

Mom was the one who was queasy about bugs, not
Beatrice. Whenever a bug showed up in the house, Mom refused to get near it,
dead or alive. Beatrice would scoop the bug into a cup, cover it with a card,
and release it outside. The bug was probably just lost, and nobody deserved to
be executed for being lost.

But with all the bees around, this was
different. A colony this size had about fifty-thousand bees, and if they got
aggressive, they would defend the hive with their lives.

Twisty-gut feeling and all, Beatrice was dying
to get a good look inside the hive, especially the brood nest, the innermost
part where the queen and the larvae lived. At least, the scientist part of her
wanted to. The scaredy-cat part of her wanted to go home and read about
it. The scientist won out.

Mr. Andelin had the lid off now, removing the
wooden honeycomb frames one by one to inspect them, and Beatrice forced herself
to lean forward for a good look. There wasn’t much to see yet. She counted a
total of seven bees crawling on the honeycomb. Oh, now eight. Most of them
would be deeper in the hive.

Mr. Andelin stood very still and didn’t talk
for a bit.

Beatrice did the same. This was one of the
things she liked about him. She could ask him dozens of questions, or spout as
many science facts as she liked, and it didn’t annoy him. He seemed to enjoy
it. Sometimes when she helped him water his flower garden or refill the
butterfly feeders, they didn’t talk at all, which was perfectly
comfortable.

Another bee landed on her veil, walking in a
circle in front of Beatrice’s face. Following its path made her a little
dizzy.

“That’s Jasmine.” Mr. Andelin motioned toward
it. “She’s just curious. And a bit too outgoing for her own good.”

Strange how Mr. Andelin thought of his bees
like people, giving them names and personalities. And even stranger that he
could tell them apart.

Mr. Andelin pulled out another frame and
inspected it. He spoke softly, but loud enough for Beatrice to hear. “Look,
Hazel. Rosa has a mite on her back. Right there. Can you get it off?”

Oh, gosh. Now he was talking to them. Did
other beekeepers do that? People talked to dogs. And she’d seen a movie once
where a boy talked to a cow while he milked it.

Maybe he talked to his bees because he was
lonely. Mr. Andelin lived by himself and didn’t have family nearby. Beatrice
could understand lonely. She had Mom, every other weekend with Dad, and a few
friends at school. But when it came to someone to talk to about ordinary stuff,
not so much.

Mr. Andelin was still whispering over the
honeycomb. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Hazel took care of it. Now,
off you go.”

A long pause followed. Did he think they were
talking back?

“We’re getting close to the brood now,” he
said. “No jerky movements or loud noises. Nothing to make the bees nervous.”

Beatrice leaned closer for a better view. “Do
you think we’ll see the queen?”

“Probably not. She has thousands of children,
with more on the way. She’s very busy.” Slow and easy, Mr. Andelin unstacked
the last honey super and lowered it to the ground. The hum got much louder and
higher, like an engine accelerating. He murmured reassuring words, but still
the buzz intensified.

Moving at a sloth’s pace, he lifted one of the
frames from the brood nest. It was boiling with bees.

Beatrice stood up straight and took a backward
step. Maybe Mom was right. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP

The first five pages of a manuscript may be all that agents, editors, and readers read, so the First Five Pages Workshop for young adult and middle grade fiction is here to help young adult and middle grade writers off to an unputdownable start with the help of three published authors and a literary agent over the course of three weeks.

We have a fabulous list of permanent workshop mentors including award-winners and NYT bestselling authors, two of whom are assigned to every manuscript in the workshop. In addition, we have a guest author each month who mentors all the workshop participants. During the third week, our guest literary agent also critiques not only the pages but also the pitch for the book and picks an overall workshop winner. The agent also chooses the strongest manuscript (or manuscripts) and awards a partial critique to an overall winner with potential priority submission opportunities for other selected participants, so not only is this a great learning opportunity, it's a great chance to get your novel published.

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FREE FIRST FIVE PAGES WORKSHOP

The November 1st 5 Pages workshop will open for submissions on Saturday, November 3rd at noon, EST. It's a fantastic opportunity for selected participants to be mentored by three published authors through three rounds of revisions and to receive additional feedback from our literary agent mentor on their first five pages and their pitch. The agent mentor will select the best of the five manuscripts in the workshop and offer additional feedback to the author, and perhaps to additional participants.